Abstract

The development of social robots that convey emotion with their
bodies---instead of or in conjunction with their faces---is an increasingly
active research topic in the field of human-robot interaction (HRI). Rather than
focusing either on postural or on dynamics aspects of bodily expression in
isolation, we present a model and an empirical study where we combine both
elements and produce expressive behaviors by adding dynamic elements (in the form
of Perlin noise) to a subset of static postures prototypical of basic emotions,
with the aim of creating expressions easily understandable by children and at the
same time lively and flexible enough to be believable and engaging. Results show
that the noise increases the recognition rate of the emotions portrayed by the
robot.